


(though you are asleep) red rings 'round my heart

by themikeymonster



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Creeper Matt Murdock, Kind of a character study, M/M, Matt Being Matt, Someone gets kissed while unconcious and uninformed, hospital room get together, the boundary lines for superheros' love interests are weird sorry I don't make the rules, what is normal romance anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-04
Updated: 2015-09-04
Packaged: 2018-04-18 21:37:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4721360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themikeymonster/pseuds/themikeymonster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>And the City is heavy - millions of tons of concrete and steel and the people who live there, all beating down on the discs between Matt's bones and bowing his neck over his bloodied hands. He spills its blood and it spills his, and he takes his pound of flesh from it and it carves scars into his skin and lays claim to him. This is the altar at which he prays with busted knuckles and it's never enough.</i>
</p>
<p>--</p>
<p>The mouth-to-mouth resuscitation of Matt Murdock's heart takes a few years, but they get there. Eventually.</p>
            </blockquote>





	(though you are asleep) red rings 'round my heart

**Author's Note:**

> originally posted this at the daredevil kinkmeme - liked it, so polished it up and imported it. 
> 
> [Prompt](http://daredevilkink.dreamwidth.org/4501.html?thread=8686229#cmt8686229): Matt/Foggy - Matt steals a kiss from Foggy while he's sleeping
> 
> **Notes**  
>  Matt is creepy and he worries about it, hints of an (undiagnosed mood disorder), somewhat gruesome imagery at times but nothing as bad as the show, Twilight jokes are made but Matt is not actually Edward Cullen

 

* * *

 

 

So. It starts at Columbia, because that's where they meet, right?

 

And Matt, he doesn't think much of Franklin "Foggy" Nelson, not at first. Oh, it isn't like they don't get along, after that awkward moment at the door, because they do! And it's not that Matt thinks poorly of him, because Matt's been raised better than that - but also, Foggy's got some kind of quality that Matt wishes he had, where people just can't seem to dislike him. It isn't anything that Foggy does, at least not as far as Matt can tell, and he has been paying attention, so it must be something that Foggy is.

 

Because Matt's good at charming people, and when he was a kid he'd learned relatively quick to play the limping gazelle to get his way - but he has to _work_ at it. Foggy must have some hell of a smile because Matt would _smell_ pheromones; people say ugly things right up until they meet him and suddenly they're inviting him to parties (" - oh. And, uh ... you can bring him, too, I guess.") and asking to study with him and they remember him and do him favors.

 

And spending twenty-fours a day listening to that for a few months must do something crazy to Matt's head, because he starts acting like kind of an asshole, just a bit. He _knows_ he's acting like some kind of asshole, but it's like he's lost complete control of himself and can't stop no matter how much he's screaming at himself to do it. Like the devil inside the Murdock boys has stretched its claws down into his fingers and bares its teeth behind his grin.

 

Maybe the worst part is that at first, Foggy doesn't hold it against him. Matt knows how to charm people, even though he has to work at it. Surviving high school meant he knew just what kind of smile to put on his face to pull girls in, even if they were being friendly with Foggy first. Foggy's actually done nothing to deserve it and Matt is screaming at himself to stop but it still happens. So.

 

Things come to a head, of course, because as nice and laid back and forgiving as Foggy is, he's not a doormat, either, and Matt finds this out the hard way. It's a bad idea to pick a fight with the guy that people like, especially the way he did. He gets a reputation, but that's not what makes him regret it.

 

He's picked a fight with his roommate, and it's only in the aftermath that he realizes just what a bad idea that is. He's prepared for a lot of things, but nothing happens. No, less than nothing happens, and that's the problem, isn't it? Foggy doesn't do anything especially dickish, like move the furniture around the way a lot of sighted people might - Matt could deal with that. He's used to how people treat him because he can't see, even if it pisses him off because _what if he hadn't had his senses_?

 

Foggy doesn't do that, though. Foggy doesn't do anything. They share a room and suddenly it's like Matt doesn't even exist anymore. Foggy doesn't say one word to him, doesn't say 'hi' or 'good night' or even utter 'Murdock' in that judgmental and chiding tone; he doesn't complain about classes or talk about their classmates or mention where he's going or when he's coming back. He doesn't make sure Matt actually gets up when his alarm clock goes off, or that all his clothes make it to the laundromat and back, or tell him what the professors' visual aids look like or what they've written on the fucking board because they keep forgetting he's blind, just one of a handful of students who need additional consideration.

 

That's all bad enough, but apparently a few months is long enough for Matt to have forgotten just how much work is it to make himself approachable on his own. It's not that people don't like Matt, even though it feels like that. It's just that he's blind, and abled people don't know what to do with that. It's just that they find him attractive, and that intimidates them even though he doesn't know why. There must be something about him, maybe the way he stands or the line of his jaw or something explicable like that, something sighted people see about him that discourages them from approaching, from making idle conversation.

 

Without Foggy there to act as a buffer, to be the 'translator' when people don't know what to do with a blind man, to be the open, welcoming one - most people don't feel comfortable coming too close.

 

(The world yawns wide and black and empty before him: a still spot in a river that rushes and never pushes close enough to be real.)

 

Something has to give in that situation, and it ends up being Matt, he thinks. The specifics have been lost - there was a party that Foggy went to, and an hour later, Matt, too. It wasn't the kind of party you really needed an invite to. He'd shown up, toning down the usual behaviors expected of him and smiling, and drinking, and being the way he had to be to make people let their guards down, to make them like him. He remembers that he was a bit drunk already - purposefully drunk - by the time he finally managed to come face-to-face with Foggy.

 

The details are lost, but he remembers they'd gone back to their dorm and that there had been a lot of laughing, that they were both falling down drunk, although it took more for Foggy to end up that way than Matt himself. They were falling down drunk and laughing so loud that it hurt Matt ears, even as muffled as his senses were by the drink. He remembers that Foggy passed out, and that he'd panicked a bit, because he remembered that passing out drunk was bad - that was alcohol poisoning, and -

 

And the thought of Foggy dying, the thought of him being snuffed out of the world, had sent Matt into a bit of a tailspin of hysteria. Or he thinks it must have, because that would be the only excuse, wouldn't it? He can't remember that part too clearly, but there must have been a reason for what he did.

 

His senses had been well and truly muffled by the drink, but his hands were still as sensitive as a normal person, and doctors do it. It made perfect sense that he'd just use _them_ to make sure that Foggy would be okay, that he'd make it through the night. That had to be the logic behind him putting his hands on Foggy: that he was checking his pulse or his temperature or feeling for a dozen other things he couldn't remember how to verbalize except it all added up to 'healthy body working perfectly'.

 

It's the only excuse for measuring the beat of Foggy's heart against the heel of his hand, for measuring the stretch of his ribs bending over his lungs, for seeking out the pulse of blood in his neck, and - but he'd read Foggy's face. It was just to see if there was discomfort, he's sure - if Foggy was frowning, or if his skin was too cold. Because, really, feeling someone's face to 'see' it isn't a real thing, it really isn't, Matt knows that.

 

(He also knows that he always asks for it, that he craves it: he can't _see_ people anymore, but he can touch them like this and listen to the nervous patter of their heart, their skin warming with embarrassment beneath his fingertips. It's as close as he can get these days to looking into someone's eyes.)

 

It's the only excuse he can think of - that he was drunk, and scared to death and so certain that Foggy might die - for taking advantage, for touching him like that without even asking, and -

 

(- and for bending close with his fingers curled around the curve of Foggy's face and tasting his breath for the moment when it turns sick and poisoned, and that he was drunk and unbalanced was the only reason why he leaned into it, the softness of his mouth.)

 

\--

 

Matt forgets at times that the world isn't nice or easy or kind. Sometimes it pretends to be, like when it tosses him a bone in the shape of someone honest and good like Foggy. That's a lie, or rather a trick, because - well. He'd kind of thought of Foggy as something going his way. His own response to the situation only proves otherwise.

 

Matt makes the decision to avoid drinking after his own strange lapse in decorum, and immediately runs into another problem: namely, drinking is one of the more popular social activities on campus. He lets Foggy drag him to parties and drinks water, or to bars and orders virgin, and Foggy says "your choice, buddy," and Matt taps his fingers against his cups and glasses and listens to the way people don't relax, like they've got some kind of radar that tells them he's not impaired.

 

It's better - easier - with Foggy, but if he expects to get along with their classmates, if he expects to network like they have to, then he has to drink occasionally. When he doesn't have classes the next day, when he can spend the entire thing either in bed or in the bottom of the shower because it's slightly cooler there - enough to matter for Matt - then he indulges.

 

It's always a bad idea. Matt indulges, and this somehow makes Foggy drink faster and heavier than usual, like Matt's egging him on somehow. At the end of the night, he's never as drunk as Foggy is - he can't be, not with his senses, he already can't _see_ \- and Foggy always ends up asleep before him, and. And nearly every time, it seems completely logical to drunk-Matt to make sure Foggy's not going to die from alcohol poisoning the same way he did that first night.

 

In the morning, he always feels like a criminal. There are sexual harassment laws he's violating here, he's pretty sure, even if he couldn't point them out by section or number. Some kind of public decency law, maybe, even if it only happens when they get back to the dorms and it's just him and Foggy - as if that's any better, or makes what he does okay - _come on, Murdock, what the Hell is wrong with you?_

 

By the time Matt can't stand it anymore and has to put an end to almost all the drinking he does, it's been going on long enough that he can't explain _why_ to Foggy, just that he doesn't want to. He was probably going to graduate summa cum laude anyway, but staying in those nights probably made it easier.

 

\--

 

Matt forgets about it a little bit. It doesn't come up for a while because suddenly there's so much to do - they're trying to be professionals, and they're interning-until-they're-quitting and Matt - well. Matt has the city on his mind and on his shoulders. It rests its heavy weight on the bone of his spine, triangulated between his shoulders and just below the knob of his neck.

 

And it _is_ heavy - millions of tons of concrete and steel and the people who live there, all beating down on the discs between Matt's bones and bowing his neck over his bloodied hands. He spills its blood and it spills his, and he takes his pound of flesh from it and it carves scars into his skin and lays claim to him. This is the altar at which he prays with busted knuckles and it's never enough.

 

It gets to the point that Matt forgets how to even breathe and has to learn anew every day, has to learn how to navigate the world again. It gets to that point, except that's where he finds it: lurking in the corners of Nelson and Murdock, in certain words beneath his fingers, in the clipping echoes of running feet in an alley and the hush that follows a fight when all his opponents are down.

 

It's the sharp bite of ethanol burning his nose and burning his tongue, soft and sticky and wet and warm. Familiar skin and familiar sounds and familiar smells. It lingers in the dark places (and his world is dark) and finds a place there and Matt always aches but it aches differently, like a bruise he can't stop touching.

 

(It's pushing some kind of boundary, but Matt makes a criminal of himself again - he's already one, he's been one, and he becomes one all over again. He knows he shouldn't, that he's toeing a line that shouldn't be crossed, but - it's like fingers, pressing a bruise. If the City is mostly quiet, then Matt finds himself on a familiar rooftop, listening: those breaths and those heartbeats, and his fingers twitching like they can recall once-familiar skin.)

 

He presses the bruise, and it darkens, and it hollows him, and the City pours in.

 

\--

 

Things go to Hell, of course. Of course. The City has poured in and it's trying to eat Matt alive and all he has left to grasp desperately at is that memory in the darkness, where it lingers in the corners. Foggy finds out and things go to Hell and Matt can feel the world spiraling out of control and his scrambling hands can't find anything to hold on to and his bruise, his favorite bruise, is filled with shattered glass and the pain spreads and breaks open and bleeds him out over everything.

 

It bleeds him out worse than any cut in his skin, and he thinks: _this is it, this is how the story ends_.

 

\--

 

It doesn't end, though. Matt thinks, for a moment, that it might have been kinder if it did, and then his stomach drops on the up-curve that flings him into the air and he doesn't know where he's going to land or even if he's going to smash into something unexpectedly.

 

Or maybe it's not an up-curve, but just the world tilting back again; like it's overcompensating for going to Hell in the first place and is tilting too far the other way. Matt is either flung through the air or he's losing his balance, one or the other. He can't find his feet, is what it feels like - balance lost or like he's gotten the spins more powerfully than he ever has before. He can't find his footing but his feet are trying, desperately, to keep him upright and he's never sure at any second whether or not he'll be left standing.

 

He's on the up-swing and he's lost his balance and he's already a criminal and so once, when it's more early morning than it is late at night, he finds a particular window. He knows the pattern of Foggy's breathing, his resting heartbeat, and he knows it's more or less safe. He cracks the window open just to listen a little more closely, a little more freely, and that's really all he meant to do. It's really all he meant to do, but he can't find his footing. He's falling through the air and he doesn't know where he's going to land, but these things are things he can grasp and hold onto; things he can use to anchor himself and control his descent.

 

So he does. He anchors himself against them, that familiar heartbeat and breathing and skin; he anchors himself against Foggy, soft and warm and tasting faintly of cinnamon. Grasps tightly and hopes for the best with his mouth drawn tight in a preemptive wince, and -

 

And it works. His feet find steady ground again, and are flat and firm upon it; he's finally landed, no longer sailing through an infinite and unfamiliar darkness. For a brief and beautiful instant, the City is held at bay by sticky sweet and the bite of spice. Its weight has been eased up off his neck and is no longer forcing his head to bow over his bloodied knuckles.

 

Matt thinks that it's been locked outside, and in a moment of sickening weakness, wants to stay just exactly where he is and allow himself a moment of selfishly burying his head under a pillow like that really muffles anything at all, the way he used to do at Columbia. Foggy would -

 

He's not supposed to be here, actually, so Foggy would probably _not_ wake him up and make sure they both get to work. Foggy would probably be upset, and Matt remembers that this is - probably not what normal people do, at least not without getting restraining orders filed against them, and that's just not going to work at all.

 

But "Thank you," he says against Foggy's skin, because he's landed, at least. He can get up, even though he's _tired_ , even though he aches, even though it's hard. He can get up, and so he does. Dad always said the getting up was the important part.

 

He gets up and he lets himself back out the window and shuts it tight behind him before the City can creep in. Instead, the City takes him back into the lonely, screaming night, and swallows him whole again.

 

\--

 

The City is jealous, and has the world on its side, and the world is not nice, or easy, or kind. When it can't go after Matt, it goes after the things and the people he cares about (and he cares about so much, he feels that he is an open wound, a living bruise, with not enough but too much to lose.)

 

"He's sleeping now," Karen tells him outside of Foggy's room. This time, at least, Matt has heard about it. This time, at least, he was able to answer his phone to Karen's upset words -

 

(But the danger has passed. It has happened and it has gone and there is nothing for Matt to do but stand there, vibrating, feeling so much coil inside of him and bang on his ribs and bones and teeth, desperate to escape him in an explosion of violence.)

 

"How bad is it?" He asks. Foggy _sounds_ fine, mostly - from the hallway is a little far to hear Foggy's heart, but it seems a little sluggish, and his breathing is a little slow. There's no tightness or catch to his throat, so he's probably on some kind of analgesic and asleep. He _sounds_ fine, but Matt can't tell for sure, he doesn't _know_ , so he has to ask. No one is going to leave medical charts laying around in braille for Matt to read.

 

Next time, he thinks - too realistic to think there won't be a next time - he'll be there. He'll be with Foggy, coming into the hospital, and he'll be able to listen to the words from the doctors and nurses themselves instead of relying on the information delivered second hand.

 

"Uh," Karen says, and her voice is still a little tight from the shock, but her heart is steady so the news won't be bad. "The doctors say he'll be fine, but they're still running blood tests. You know. The wound looked clean, but - Um. Uh, he's been in and out, you know. He asked for you. Sounded worried."

 

Matt inhales. He has been beaten too often and been responsible for too much to feel guilty about this, but it aches a bit, deep within him, like a fractured bone that hasn't yet healed. "Right," he says, because he doesn't know what else to say.

 

"Right," she echoes. Her hair whispers and she sighs, looking away. "You should check in on him. I'll - I'll wait out here for you. He's asleep, I think." There's a jacket in her arms, that scrapes against itself and her skin as she shuffles a bit to the side and steps away.

 

It's enough to distract him briefly - Karen likes Foggy, she wouldn't be so calm if he were in danger, he doesn't _sound_ in danger - normally Karen would want to escort him inside. It would be the thoughtful thing to do, and there isn't any nurse or doctor around to tell them 'one at a time'.

 

It bothers him for a moment, but then he's only thankful for whatever it is, because he's feeling bruised, and crowded, and his hands and his back ache. He needs this moment to himself, and doesn't want any tentative explanations of how Foggy looks, laying there on the hospital bed - doesn't want to be presented with the temptation to ask. The hospital already screams and cries and moans and weeps around him, is already thick with vomit and blood and antiseptic and bleach, he doesn't need another dimension to the horror of it.

 

Matt steps into the room and swings the door mostly shut behind him, as if that will muffle any of it out. It just isolates him with the bruised smell of Foggy, the saline and the blood. No heart monitor, which is good, he thinks - they already know he's in no danger of reacting badly to the analgesic, or blood loss.

 

The cane is left leaning against the wall near the door, and then Matt is stepping forward, and he is moving too quickly as he circles around the bed. He isn't lost, or stumbling, and his feet know where the ground is, but maybe he's still sailing through the air anyway. He has to put his hands on Foggy to make sure that he's going to survive, even though his senses are as sharp as ever. Foggy's skin is cold on the surface, chilled by the air, but his core is warm and anywhere that Matt's fingers linger warms quickly. He's alive, and he's going to survive, Matt thinks, despite the knife wound. He's alive, and he'll be okay -

 

Foggy's face is relaxed under his fingers, slack with sleep or the drugs or both, and it warms quickly under his palms. His thumbnails trace over the arch of Foggy's brow and press gently down to feel the thin skin of his eyelids and the tickle of his lashes against the softest part of his thumb, below the calloused pad. At this range, Matt can hear his heartbeat easily, but he still needs, he's still bruised and bleeding and needs to feel it. Slides his hands around to feel along Foggy's neck to find a source for the soft susurrous of blood rushing through his veins and -

 

There are faint traces of wheat flour and yeast on Foggy's breath, and something sticky and sweet and lemony under the acrid fear and the chemical bite of the analgesic in his blood. It shouldn't hush quiet the dull, breaking roar of the hospital, shouldn't shoulder the weight of the City out the door as if it doesn't belong here - shouldn't do those things, but it does, even if Foggy's breath is stale on his tongue. After all, that's not what Matt's really seeking out here, is it?

 

_Oh_ , he thinks, and for the first time he gentles his mouth into a kiss.

 

And the world is not nice, or easy, or kind, and so against his mouth is said: "what the fuck."

 

Matt doesn't startle because startling has been trained out of him for years, but as adrenaline washes through him, even his clothes feel abrasive and harsh. Instead he freezes while his options splay out in front of him, but he's well and truly caught red-handed as he has been only a few times before. He'd honestly rather be facing the police again.

 

He peels his fingers loose from Foggy's face and calmly, deliberately releases him and straightens up and does not lick his lips even though he has to fight hard to avoid it. _Now_ he registers that Foggy's breathing is faster, his heartbeat quicker - Matt was too busy cataloging his own sensory input to have made note of the shift from unconsciousness to awareness, and now it's already fast. This isn't Foggy's flight-of-fight response - Matt's heard that before, when Marci once went on a tear, and another time thanks to a professor - and it's not, thank God, Foggy's fury response, which Matt has already had sprung on him once before and doesn't want to hear ever again.

 

At this point, all Matt can do is play dumb, so he musters himself for innocence and hopes desperately that he's gotten better at it since Columbia, since according to Foggy he can't act worth shit. "Karen called me," he says. "I came as soon as I could. How bad is it? Do you know who they were?"

 

If he did, undoubtedly Foggy's already told the police, not that it matters. Not that it matters if he doesn't, either, because the City will give him his ton of flesh for this, and he'll find them sooner or later.

 

Foggy just might take a pound of flesh out of Matt, too, for this. _Matt_ would, he thinks - he's been performing a sort of sexual misconduct on Foggy for years, apparently, while deluding himself otherwise.

 

"I'm fine," Foggy says, slow and doubtful. There's no need for Matt's 'invasive' and dodgy polygraph techniques here, not even to overanalyze that: there is obviously nothing okay with this situation. "No need for the good drugs," he adds graciously, "I'm already high enough as it is, because I could have sworn you just kissed me."

 

"Huh," Matt offers flatly, like: _what an outlandish hallucination, Foggy, golly gee whiz!_ This is a game that he's heard Foggy play too often, with his sisters and in the courts, and he hates to see it in action now. This is Foggy's game of pretend, where he just keeps giving rope and keeps giving rope, pretending to go along with whatever fib is being told and waiting for his opponent to hang themselves with all the rope in their hands.

 

There is obviously no question in Foggy's mind what he woke up to, and Matt - Matt's not being left off the hook just yet.

 

"Dunno why I would have hallucinated that," Foggy adds, pointedly. "I mean, I have not been short on hot nurses - I'm a hero, you know - has anyone given you the whole story? There was a little old lady involved."

 

"When isn't there?" Matt asks. Of course there was; Foggy has a soft-spot for the elderly ever since his grandmother moved in with his family shortly before high school. She's still kicking, of course, and is allegedly the origin of the Nelsons' good genes and why they're all going to live forever.

 

His hopes that the story would distract Foggy are dashed, because Foggy says "Uh-huh, so. 's strange, you know. I'm tired and on drugs, but I'm pretty sure that I didn't lose enough blood to be hallucinating my best friend kissing me - but weirder things have happened! I mean, aliens invaded, so."

 

Matt can't make heads or tails of what Foggy's body is saying, and he's not entirely sure why the comparison irritates him, but it does. How does Matt kissing Foggy rank on the same level as an _alien invasion_? And he's nearly equally irritated by the out he's being offered, like Foggy watched him refuse to pick up the rope and hang himself and so he's helpfully nudging it to the side. He _should_ take the out - should take it and run and never ever haunt Foggy's rooftop again, no matter how he prods at the bruise that is the memory of Foggy's mouth against his. He _should_ \- but.

 

Matt has been reliably informed that his self-preservation instincts are for shit, and Jack didn't raise a coward and he hates lying which is why he's never gotten any good at it, so Matt says, "Okay, so maybe I've been doing that for years."

 

Foggy says, "what."

 

It doesn't matter where Matt faces his head, but he turns it away because he's not sure what it might be telling Foggy without his permission at the moment. "I didn't mean to," he says, even though he did, he really did, every time, he just hadn't known the _why_ of it until now. "I know it's not -" _okay_ "but I just-" _needed to know you're going to make it, but_ "I'll stop, okay? I'll -"

 

_Just go out of my mind_. He feels like he will at this moment, as frustrated as he is and losing the war with his words. He's usually so good with them, but it's harder when it's Foggy. He doesn't know _why_ it's always so hard when it's Foggy, but it is, and if he tries to charm or manipulate Foggy like he does other people, Foggy's going to know. Foggy will find out, and he'll be furious, and Matt can't take that.

 

He can't take that, can't survive it - this latest round of revelations had nearly flayed Matt alive, and going through that a second time? He'd be better off dead. He's strong and he's got the devil inside him and Murdocks can take a hit and it's the getting up that matters, but he's never been as strong as his dad, he won't get up again.

 

"Matt," Foggy says, and " _Matt_ " like he's still talking even though he's already stuttered to a stop. He's just shaking, but he always shakes a bit when he gets this frustrated, this infuriated, at himself and at the world and at everything. "Matt," Foggy says a third time, then: "you don't have to stop."

 

It takes Matt a bit to process this, to parse it and place it back into the context of what he'd actually said verses what he had only thought. It still doesn't make any sense in context, either, he decides, so he says: "I'm pretty sure I do."

 

Foggy sighs, loud and gusty, the way he does when he's particularly frustrated with Matt. Foggy is gentle and kind but not with Matt, not unless he's drunk, because he already knows that Matt can take a hit and it's Matt's fault in the first place, for starting their friendship the way he did - but Matt wishes he would be, sometimes. Foggy has mostly been frustrated, recently, and Matt tries not to resent what he's earned himself.

 

"No, you really don't," Foggy says, exasperated and irritable. "I mean - you're clearly being a little bit - eh -" the noise is accompanied by a gesture that is wide enough to register with Matt, a see-saw of Foggy's hand that suggests Matt's being questionable, which: thanks, he'd figured that out all on his own - "but. I guess there's probably worse coping methods? Just ... not when I'm - sleeping, or whatever. Outside of fairy tales, that's a bit much. And even inside fairy tales, that's kind of - you know."

 

His fingertips tingle a bit, maybe ache. A bit like they had during that long dry spell between Columbia and Daredevil. His mouth feels a bit loose and hungry, which is - new. But he hadn't known until now, so maybe that had something to do with it. He opens it to say - something - but nothing comes out. There is an overwhelming need in him to cross the space again, to set his fingertips to the tiny roadways under Foggy's skin and set his mouth to the hot wetness of Foggy's and reassure himself with all his available senses that Foggy is a thing that exists and that he will continue to exist even when they're apart.

 

It feels greedy to ask "What about now?" But he does, because Foggy said so and he needs it - he still needs it, he feels shaky with frustration and a fear he still hasn't laid completely to rest, that Daredevil will be too much to ask of Foggy (it's been too much to ask of people before-).

 

"Now," Foggy echoes, sounding stunned, his heart rate ratcheting up, and Matt can't tell if it's bad or good. "You want to kiss me now? Uh, buddy, it's been kind of a long day, my mouth is pretty gross -"

 

" _Foggy_ ," he says, and it tastes strange in his mouth and sounds strange to his ears, and Foggy stops talking. He can barely remember what it was like before his senses anymore, but anything in the air to smell is also in the air to taste: car exhaust and burning things and blood and guts and food and worse rotting in back alleys and in dumpsters and the Hudson. Stale breath is the least of his concerns.

 

Foggy laughs, a little shallow but also a little high, and that's the sign that Matt's looking for - the good sign; Foggy only laughs like that when he's actually getting somewhere with someone and can't believe his luck. "Yeah, okay."

 

He doesn't need to be told twice; Foggy's bright against his skin, a beacon in the chilled room, so he bends forward and reaches out. Sets his hand first to Foggy's shoulder and then slides it up to curl at the edge of Foggy's face and marks the distance to Foggy's mouth with his thumb at Foggy's chin. Matt's spatial awareness is pretty good, but when it comes to kissing there's so much to pay attention to that he prefers to be cautious.

 

Foggy's heart jumps and his breath hitches in that particular way and this is it: if this happens, things are going to change. He hesitates. He almost asks 'okay', but he's not sure he wants the answer, not sure he could take a step back at this point, and so -

 

So Matt breaches the distance and kisses Foggy. It's soft, and warm, and Foggy is alive and well under his lips, and it's different - it's different actually being a kiss, but also and mostly because Foggy kisses back. With one hand at his elbow and the other coming to rest at the back of Matt's neck, Foggy kisses him back, and Matt's going to crack open and bleed everywhere, because -

 

Foggy knows. Foggy's known him for years, and he knows what Matt does and he hates it and Foggy still kisses him back. _Oh_ , he thinks again.

 

He does. Matt cracks open. Matt is hollowed out but it doesn't feel like bleeding; Matt is hollowed out and his bones are pulled from his flesh and turned around and placed back in again; he is made empty and then he is illuminated and the Devil that hides inside him scrambles and it flees, it races away to the scattered shadows inside him and curls up small and quiet into the bend of his fingers and the curve of his spine where the only person it can hurt is him. He is cracked open and hollowed out and filled again so that the distant City can't find space within him to fill, and -

 

_Oh_.

 

\--

 

The first day Foggy comes back into the office - the next day, as a matter of fact, because Foggy is many things and terrible at bed rest is one of them; Matt never wants to hear Foggy scold him about his own injuries because that would make Foggy the pot in this situation and Matt is exactly fearless enough to point that out -Foggy stalks into Matt's office to confront him as soon as Karen goes on her lunch break and it's just the two of them. 

 

"I can't believe you tricked me into a relationship while I was high on drugs," he says, planting his hands on Matt's desk like he's a cop and this is an interrogation.

 

Matt cautiously pauses the program and pulls his earplug out, and then sits there baffled for a second before venturing, "You weren't that high."

 

He really wasn't. Foggy might have been stabbed and sewn up again, but it had been a shallow cut and it hadn't punctured any organs and the nurse Matt questioned last night reassured him that Foggy's decision making skills wouldn't have been _that_ impaired. Not that he'd been worried or anything.

 

And anyway, Foggy isn't upset, even if his heart rate is up, so Matt feels justified saying so.

 

"You don't know that," Foggy tells him. "I could have been tasting colors and watching cartoon characters dance across the room, Matt. Look, just because you've been pining for years -"

 

"I have not," he interrupts, a bit prickly. If he'd been pining, he's pretty sure he would have noticed. Probably. Anyway, even if he had, it wasn't something he was dumb enough to admit to Foggy in the first place.

 

"Uh huh." Foggy doesn't sound particularly convinced. "Look, just because you've been pining for years-" He ignores Matt's loud sigh, "doesn't mean you can pull an Edward Cullen-"

 

"We have to break up, right now, immediately," Matt says. There are things he's willing to overlook for love and then there are Twilight jokes. Foggy is _already_ breaking them out and that means Matt can never ever mention what he does on quiet nights before going back home.

 

"Oh, shut up," Foggy says, and apparently he's brought his pen with him, because he throws it at Matt. Matt could deflect it and easily, but Foggy isn't even trying so he lets it connect. "I have sisters, need I remind you. I'm just saying, there is a certain pattern of behavior here that's slightly worrying."

 

"Uh huh," Matt says, wondering if he's supposed to react to Foggy's words or his body, because he's getting mixed messages here. Foggy doesn't even sound particularly mad, but he's not saying anything Matt hasn't thought, either, so.

 

He's aware of Foggy studying his reaction and wonders what Foggy's reading. He's never entirely sure how much his own body betrays him - spatial awareness does not help with reading facial tics or body language. He doesn't know what it looks like to avoid doing it himself.

 

Whatever it is apparently doesn't hold a candle against Foggy's own view on the situation, because his next words have very little to do with Matt, relatively speaking. Foggy sounds faintly horrified. "Ah, jeez! I'm the superhero's girlfriend! You know what that means? That means I'm _supposed_ to put up with your weird habits and vague excuses - _not_ that I'm going to, Murdock, get that stupid grin off your face."

 

"Sorry," Matt offers, but he only makes a token effort to actually stop smiling; he _could_ be laughing, and he's not, so Foggy's already caught a bit of a break. "To be fair, though, I am not actually a superhero and you aren't a girl."

 

"Don't argue semantics with me," Foggy says crossly. "I am actually better at that part than you, remember? And I _will_ cross examine you and I expect good and logical reasons that aren't founded on paranoia alone." He pauses and makes a face that Matt can only guess at. "I _guess_ the creepy stalking part is a little unavoidable."

 

Okay, but Matt still isn't going to admit to that; he's not dumb, and Foggy's words feel too much like rope.

 

"How is this my life," Foggy complains. "How am I supposed to explain this to my mother, Matt? I'm the one she's not supposed to have to worry about! What if there are supervillain schemes and I end up getting kidnapped? We can't do that to my mom!"

 

"I'm almost entirely convinced that won't be a problem," he says dryly, remembering the way Foggy had effortlessly tied almost the entire campus of Columbia around his little finger. His brain helpfully offers him the scenario of Wilson Fisk giving him the shovel talk and he can't quite help the disgusted grimace.

 

And sure, it's an actual problem, and Matt knows that they'll revisit it soon enough - Foggy isn't one to let a problem that serious rest, just because he raised it in jest first. But for now, for right this moment, he allows himself not to worry about it. For this moment, he just stands up and reaches across his desk, and bruises both his thighs on it kissing the rest of Foggy's arguments into silence.

 

After all, the City and the Devil have enough of him; here, with Foggy, in the space between their mouths, he's just Matthew Murdock, illuminated.

 

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> title thanks to To Kill a King's [I Work Nights and You Work Days](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujURpIy7MyA) (though the second half does not appear in the song, it's merely how I wish the lyric went)
> 
> you guys im so embarrassed no one told me i was using the wrong columbia omg omg rude


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